2018 - THE YEAR THAT WAS

2018 has been my toughest year as a writer since I decided to go full-time freelance in 2010. I spent the majority of the year in excruciating pain, suffered a critical loss of motivation, lost confidence in myself and my writing, got rejected from every competition or opportunity I entered and every job I applied for, watched as projects were rejected or failed to move forward, lost a dear and valued friend over a difference of politics, made a twit of myself on Twitter, grew increasingly frustrated as I failed to earn even a single commision and reluctantly accepted that I would have to find myself a full-time job to keep myself afloat. I became so disillusioned with writing, the production process and the industry as a whole I very nearly quit, the closest I've ever come to walking away for good. It got to the point I actually hated writing with a passion and was terrified of the thought of having to sit down in front of a blank screen and try to put words on a page. In a nutshell, 2018 was an utter bag of shite!

But there were brief, isolated moments of pure joy that kept me going, including some absolutely outstanding TV drama, with KILLING EVE, BODYGUARD, MCMAFIA, A VERY BRITISH SCANDAL, THE CRY and WANDERLUST amongst my favourites. Yvonne Grace's Script Editing Course was an absolute lifesaver and came my way at my lowest point, injecting me with new found enthusiasm and a new career avenue to explore. Yvonne and the others on the course helped me to find my focus again and my love of writing and drama in particular. I owe her and them a huge debt of gratitude. Thank you!

COWBOYS CAN FLY took a jump closer to going into production by attaching a director and a European production company. I'm trying not to get too excited as I know from experience these things can fall apart very easily, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the new year.

I also have to thank Lee Helliar for the growing optimism for my writing in 2019. She took one of my TV ideas and pitched it to companies as a producer. Again we have interest from Europe but won't find out how solid that interest is until next year. And again I'm not getting too excited as interest doesn't always turn into a commision.

Late November and December have been interesting too. I've had the same amount of script consultancy work in the last six weeks as I've had over the rest of the year. I'm so busy I don't even have time to write. There's even the strong possibility of a writing gig off the back of one of those jobs, as the producer and director were very impressed with my report.

So I'm going to put 2018 down as a blip and look forward to 2019 and all the great things it's going to hold for me.

Merry Christmas and I'll see you all
next year.

Happy writing!